[lugm.org] local hosting - was [Announcing a Mauritian tech forum]

[Nishal Goburdhan]

On 18 Dec 2013, at 1:13 PM, Ish Sookun <ish at hacklog.in> wrote:

> I was hoping not to get into this discussion because I always keep the sarcastic smile when it comes to local hosting ( :
> How do you want me to host my "personal" blog on a local server that would cost Rs 16,400 per month and a .mu domain for nearly Rs 1,800/year.

let me try to ask that differently?  there exists a market for hosting in mauritius at QQQ price.  what is acceptable as QQQ, is a function of:
* what you're willing to pay
* what's profitable to your operator
* an acceptable markup from the cheapest and nastiest US/DE/.. hosting that you can find overseas?

so, all that's left, is finding that acceptable QQQ.  you host a blog you say.  last i remember that's not resource intensive.  surely this can be put onto a shared VM somewhere.   
wait....is this list totally entrepreneur free ... ?

> I am a proud Mauritian geek yet my VPS runs in US and I have a .in domain. Why? I can't spend tons to be a tiny part in scaling down the price. What can I do then? I blog, I promote open standards & when I come across a local hosting provider I smile sarcastically because they do not have "decent local products".

you can advocate and lobby for your local environment, at every other opportunity you get.
presumably you work in the tech sector.  use your buying power there to influence decisions.
show the large(r) ISPs what they're losing out by not providing these services for you locally.
you blog - write about it.  encourage others to do the same.

change starts with one;  gandhi should have taught you that ;-)


> When tomorrow we'll have thousands of local bloggers hosting outside Mauritius & the local hosting is forced to be scaled down I'll gladly migrate my stuffs. I rather spend my time & energy to get people to use technology at lowered costs rather than them spending a lot on not-so-productive stuffs and after some time they gonna stop using because it's costing them too much.

i'm glad you said "cost".
have you ever worked out the true cost of hosting overseas?  (this isn't a personal statement directed at you;  but mostly to businesses)  most people haven't.
i do this on a semi-regular basis for people in my current environment that still host overseas - because all that they (mostly accountants) see is the hosting cost.  not the cost to the market, of trying to get to, and provision these services.  like you, i have not always been successful, but that doesn't mean that i've stopped trying - and everytime that i manage to persuade someone that there's value in hosting here in ZA, i make my community, one step better.

you have stable power in MU;  it's not terribly expensive by comparison.
you have favourable data privacy laws.
you have a relatively skilled workforce.
you have a unique (well, sort of) local language.
what's expensive?  the bandwidth?  but why - you have a small island;  surely it's not expensive to move data from one side to the other?  and, from what i remember of your regulation, it's easy enough to get a licence to do this.   what if you could launch a "local" bandwidth access product, that was not dependent on the "expensive" (this is what you're told, right?) submarine fibre part, to make the cost of hosting something really, really cheap locally?    ie.  differentiate between "local" and "international" bandwidth, and charge for this separately.  would that help grow your hosting market?  (hint:  it should).

as i said earlier - don't confuse "missed opportunity", with "impossible"...

as ajay rightfully said, this is now off-topic for a linux list, so if you want to continue this discussion, we can do it on binary.mu which seems to be more generic  :-)  or unicast off-list.

--n.
(economist by training.  this network stuff is just for fun)